Entertainment

LOS ANGELES — Over the course of this season, Better Call Saul has slowly shone brighter light on Jimmy and Chuck’s strained brotherly relationship — no doubt, Chuck is exhausted by Jimmy’s reckless behavior, a common thread throughout their adult lives. But Chuck also seems to unfairly judge Jimmy, whose actions are dubious but intentions are pure.

In “Rebecca’s” opening flashback, we gain subtle insight to Chuck’s distaste for Jimmy’s behavior, and realize it might be rooted in ... jealousy?

“Rebecca” introduces us to Chuck’s life before his electro-magnetic breakdown: his home is well-lit and beautiful. His wife, Rebecca, cooks a luxurious meal and vents some about her workplace troubles as a chamber orchestra violinist. Chuck’s home life is what some could only dream of, and also a representation of how much he’s lost to his mental breakdown.

(In an earlier episode, present-day Chuck is seen playing piano alone in his dark home, reading sheet music with the name “Rebecca Bois” at the top — we realize in “Rebecca” that this woman was his wife, a woman he has not been able to fully let go of.)

On the particular night of this flashback, Chuck is welcoming his brother, Jimmy, for dinner — and both Chuck and Rebecca are wary of having Jimmy in their home. But over the meal, Jimmy describes still adjusting to his job as a mailroom employee at HHM, relaying funny tales about the Xerox machine and one person in particular at the firm he’s taken notice of (Kim, perhaps?).

He praises Rebecca’s cooking, but also seems a bit stunted in terms of manners and maturity — nervous, perhaps even feeling inferior in his brother’s presence. Nevertheless, Jimmy is a charmer, and his continual line of amusing jokes about lawyers gets Rebecca laughing. While the jokes aren’t purposefully at Chuck’s expense, Chuck isn’t enjoying the barrage of comedic barbs about his line of work.

Later, after Jimmy has left, Chuck lies in bed with his wife in their immaculate bedroom. No passion seems to be present between the two as they make niceties with one another while reading. Chuck tries out a lawyer joke with Rebecca — but Rebecca doesn’t immediately follow what he’s saying, the joke foundering. The moment is small, but Chuck’s reaction — subtle disappointment, perhaps even embarrassment — points to a gap between him and Jimmy.

Chuck may have a luxurious, stable life, but he doesn’t have his brother’s infectious personality — perhaps Chuck feels, at times, inferior too.

In the present day, Jimmy is being effectively babysat by an anal-retentive second-year associate named Erin. She’s been tasked with ensuring Jimmy does everything by the Davis & Main rulebook, and that means no Beanie Baby bribes for the sassy clerk at the courthouse. Despite the human ankle bracelet he’s been stuck with, Jimmy’s primary focus is still righting things with Kim — she is still banished at HHM to basement document review, and none of it sits right with Jimmy.

Jimmy visits her in the windowless room late one night and, believing Chuck is responsible for her plight, suggests Kim sue her own firm for extortion. Kim is stunned that Jimmy thinks his brother is the root of her problems — “You are behind this,” Kim snaps. “And now I’m paying the price.” What’s more, she’s not willing to have Jimmy ride in on some dubious white horse to rescue her from this situation: “Don’t insult my intelligence by saying you’re doing any of this for me. You don’t save me. I save me.”

So Kim gets to drumming up her own life raft in order to get her out of document review hell. She begins digging through old contacts, phoning anyone or any company that could be a potential new client at HHM. In addition to Kim declaring that she doesn’t need Jimmy to “save” her, “Rebecca” spotlights subtle sexism through Kim’s storyline: during her canvassing phone calls, she is met with embarrassing drunk stories, hit on, and even assumed to be a secretary. But she finds success when a woman named Paige calls her back — with a client that could be her way back into HHM’s good graces.

Kim and Howard happily greet Paige and a man named Kevin at HHM — he’s the CEO of a major bank, Mesa Verde, and is seeking a law firm to help him with interstate expansion. Simply put, this client is a huge get for HHM — and it all traces back to Kim pounding the pavement, diligently placing calls to climb her way out of doc review.

At the end of the positive meeting with Kevin, however, Howard makes it clear to Kim that this major client acquisition changes nothing about her predicament. When Kim offers to take on some of the Mesa Verde workload, Howard replies with the crushing blow that another attorney will handle it — “You’ve got enough on your plate in doc review.”

Howard visits Chuck to share the great news about Mesa Verde. Over whiskey, the two celebrate what will amount to years of work for HHM — and at minimum a quarter of a million in billings. Howard tells Chuck that yes, Kim brought Mesa Verde in, and Chuck assumes this means Kim is “out of the dog house.” But Howard, sipping his whiskey, replies coldly, “We’ll see.”

So, back to document review and long nights for Kim. Chuck has adopted a routine of going to HHM in the pre-dawn hours and working until 9am to avoid the bulk of the electricity the building generates. He runs into Kim on one of his mornings — is she arriving before dawn, too, to get work done?

No, it turns out Kim’s has “stayed late” — so late, in fact, that the sun is beginning to come up. Chuck invites her into his office for coffee and conversation, sympathetic to her situation. Kim asks him point blank: “Do I have a future at this firm?” Chuck gives a roundabout answer, stating that the two of them have a lot in common — mainly, that they both have gone out on a limb for Jimmy, and both have paid the price.

Chuck offers a story about Jimmy to give insight to his behavior. He describes their father as the “personification of good,” a man who ran a corner store and barely made ends meet, but was beloved by his community. While Chuck was away at college, Jimmy was put to work in the corner store — and, according to Chuck, slowly pilfered over ten thousand dollars. Their father could never believe Jimmy would do such a thing, but now in financial ruin, he had to sell his corner store. “Six months later,” Chuck says of his father, “He was dead...At the funeral, no one cried harder than Jimmy.”

Chuck explains to Kim, “My brother is not a bad person. He has a good heart. It’s just ... He can’t help himself, and everyone’s left picking up the pieces.” While Chuck kindly offers to smooth things out with Howard on her behalf, Kim is too busy absorbing these character details about a man she was — and potentially is — still deeply invested in.

As for Mike, his bruised face is healing — slowly. With his daughter-in-law put up in a new residence with his granddaughter, though, Mike’s painfully-earned money seems well spent.

But Mike’s interaction with Tuco’s circle is far from over. While dining solo, a man sits down across him from — it’s Tio, Tuco’s uncle, the man who will eventually be wheelchair-bound and, ahem, explosive in “Breaking Bad.” But right now, he’s younger and healthy, and here to apologize to Mike on behalf of his family.

“The man who did that to you,” Tio says, referencing Mike’s beat up face, “He should’ve shown you respect.” Tio says that Tuco does deserve jail time, but not the minimum 8 years that the parking lot ordeal will cost him. Tio wants Mike to tell the cops that the gun Tuco had was actually his, thereby sitting Tuco with a mere battery charge and far less time behind bars. Tio will also give Mike a cool five thousand bucks for his troubles.

“I’m looking for the best possible outcome for everybody,” Tio says as he leaves, telling Mike to think about it. But knowing what Tio and his family are capable of in “Breaking Bad,” it doesn’t seem Mike will have many choices to think over at all.

AJ Marechal is a writer and entertainment journalist based in Los Angeles. She has held editorial positions at Allure, Harper's Bazaar and Playboy, and most recently served as Variety's TV reporter. At Variety, AJ covered all aspects of the televisio...More

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